Essay on Conflict of obligations JWilliams 4/5

Jeffrey Williams
2/1/05
Honors World Lit
Dr. McMahon, O.G.

In a shame society, when the obligations of honor conflict with obligations of morality, what do you do? The film Harakiri along with the short stories Patriotism and “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” show the outcome when Morality and honor clash in a shame society.
Masaki Kobayashi’s film Harakiri takes place in Feudal Japan where shame society ruled over, and the most important factor was to obtain honor. We see through Motome Chijiiwa, a young samurai from the house of Geishu, what happens when obligations conflict. The Geishu house was a very powerful and large house in Japan, and was currently under reconstruction. The overseer Shogunate, however, saw the reconstruction as a treat to his reign and abolished the house leaving all the samurai retainers unemployed. When Motome’s father Jennai commits ritual Seppuku, he leave’s Hanshiro Tsugumo the responsibility of Motome’s life. It also so happens that Hanshiro’s daughter, Miho, is in love with Motome. After the abolition of the house of Geishu, both Motome and Hanshiro are unemployed and can only do work in the fields that are permitted by the samurai code. Eventually Motome marries Miho, who becomes ill, and her and Motome’s son Kingo gets a terrible fever. Because of lack of money, Motome is forced into selling his two Samurai swords. Besides these being very physically strong weapons, a samurai’s swords are considered to be his very soul, and honor. On one hand, Motome has the samurai code that states that his sword is his soul and must never leave him, and on the other hand, he has a dying wife and son, and the only money he has lays in his sword. Motome values the life of his family more then his honor, and sells his swords to a pawn shop, and replaces bamboo swords in his sheaths. Although Motome did this act, the money still wasn’t enough for their troubles. The money was not enough to pay for a doctor to come see Kingo, and Motome is left with the only option to go to the house of Iye and tell them he wishes to commit seppuku, which he does not intend on actually doing, in hopes of a retainer job, or pity money from the house. Again we see that Motome is faced with a huge clash of obligations. On the one hand, he tells the house he wishes to commit seppuku, which he really isn’t intending on doing. This is a largely dishonorable act, one that cannot be redeemed without dying. On the other hand Motome could just sit back, and watch his wife and child die with “honor”.
After some trickery, the house forces Motome to commit seppuku with his bamboo blades because they believe he only came for the pity money.
The film’s purpose with Motome is to show that in life, we will be tried with conflicts, and we must make choices, sacrifices, and even defying acts to get ourselves past. However, the film appears to show that moral choices are the better of options if they are involved.
A second example of conflict of obligations is the short story Patriotism. In the story, A highly respectably lieutenant in the imperial army named Shinji Takeyama. Shinji has some friends who are involved in a rebellious act towards the imperial army. However, the orders have not yet been given to him to kill them, but he knows they will come soon enough. On one hand, Shinji could follow his orders as a loyal soldiers and go kill his rebellious friends when the orders arrive, or on the other hand, he could refuse to kill his friends, disobeying orders from his army, and be considered a traitor. However, unlike Motome, Shinji has a third option, which is to commit ritual seppuku before the orders arrive. Shinji comes to decision to commit seppuku, and therefore, offend neither his friends, nor his own army.
The short story Shinji is faced with a most difficult conflict, but unlike Motome, has a third option in which neither side of the conflict suffers, but Shinji dies. I think Shinji made the right choice, because he is not forced to defy his moral obligations, or his honor obligations as a samurai.
The third example of conflict of obligations is that in Kikcuchi Kan’s short story of “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao”. In the story, a young Daimyo of Echizen named Tadanao has been in control of a fief since he was 13. Throughout his whole life, Tadanao has won every contest, and seemed to be demi-godly at everything he did. But one night, after he held a spear-fighting tournament and won, he over heard his two retainers discussing the match. The one he beat in the end, told the other retainer that he had let Lord Tadanao win the match because if Lord Tadanao lost, he wouldn’t have been as revered.
When hearing this news, lord Tadanao’s world comes crashing down, and everything he thought he was good at in life, could be a lie. But it is impossible for him to know because he has never lost. Lord Tadanao can choose to ignore this comment, and figure it as jealously, but instead it begins to test everyone he encounters to see if they are just letting him win because he is ruler, and is supposed to be good at things.
Lord Tadanao tests everyone he meets, and then starts to kill people to see if they will resist him, or allow him to kill them just because he is high in society. He kills for seven years, until the killing stops because his mother visits him. After they meet, Tadanao become a Buddhist priest. As one he lives out the rest of his life in peace. The point of the short story is to show that people will go insane if the conflict of obligations are too great, such as Tadanao’s where he doesn’t know his own talents, and weaknesses.
With obligations of confects we see that it can make people sell their most prize possessions, kill themselves, and go insane and kill others. All three stories, have one thing in common when conflicts of obligations are involved, death, either of oneself as seen in Harakiri, and Patriotism, or of others as seen in “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao”.